


Take My Hand, I'll Teach You

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, ridiculous fluff tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a rustling from somewhere before Bucky appears meandering into the hallway with his nose buried in a book. Steve is so overcome with relief that he pays no attention to whatever it is Bucky has found.</p><p>“Oh my god, Buck. Next time, answer me when I come in,” he says in a rush.</p><p>“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says, “Apples have always been around.”</p><p>-<br/>basically Bucky finds Steve's little 21st century notebook</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Hand, I'll Teach You

**Author's Note:**

> Soo this is my first work for this fandom and I am so sorry for any suckiness that may ensue, I tried.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I quite clearly do not own any part of the Marvel universe, or the characters within it for that matter, this is all fiction.
> 
> And, finally, this fic is basically a MASSIVEEE happy birthday to Laurel. I hope you like it and have an absolutely fantabulous day. (also this can act as my sorry-but-not-really-because-I-don't-regret-it present for dragging you with me, head-first, into the heart-wrenching but nonetheless brilliant chasm of Steve/Bucky altogether.)

-

 

They’re staying with Sam and it’s difficult to begin with. Very difficult. Bucky’s memory comes back in flashes and broken scenes from the past; his cybernetic arm, though mostly altered in the interest of safety, takes a while to stop sending sharp pains through the left side of his chest that leave him stifling cries of pain until Steve comes rushing in; and of course the nightmares.

Bucky gets these nightmares where Steve can hear him tossing and turning during the night, waking up breathing heavily, before he’s burrowing up under the covers in Steve’s bed like a rabbit, settling down quietly against his side without saying a word.

Other times Steve has to shake Bucky to wake him, when he’s mumbling incoherently in what he assumes is Russian, and Bucky wakes with a start and wide eyes, only calming when Steve strokes his hair off his face and assures him it’s alright- even if that’s the last thing he believes.

Steve actually asks Natasha what he’s saying once, while Bucky is lying on the couch, curled in on himself and his forehead creased with a frown. Natasha audibly swallows before she turns to Steve, eyes sad, pats him on the shoulder and says: “It doesn’t matter, he’s okay here now.” - which does nothing to ease the nauseous feeling rolling in the pit of his stomach.

Eventually they move out, it’s not fair on Sam to stay for so many months, so they get an apartment about two blocks away.

Bucky refuses to do anything without Steve; the circle of people he trusts is very limited. When Steve goes out grocery shopping or to organize  _something_  with  _someone_  he always comes home to Bucky’s worried face on the couch, looking up from under his scruffy hair and a warm smile growing on his face when the door opens, saying; “Steve!”

 

-

 

Its one day when Steve comes back from meeting with Tony that he doesn’t find Bucky sat in his usual spot on the couch, frowning at MTV, that sets off the queasy feeling through his body.

“Buck?” He calls out, dropping his keys onto the counter and gently closing the apartment door behind him, “Bucky?”

He’s met with silence and so he calls out again, “Bucky? Are you alright?”

There’s a rustling from Steve’s bedroom and then a loud thud before Bucky appears meandering into the hallway with his nose buried in a book. Steve is so overcome with the relief that washes over him that he pays no attention to whatever it is Bucky has found.

“Oh my god, Buck. Next time, answer me when I come in,” he says in a rush, striding over to pull him into a hug.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says when Steve eventually lets go, “Apples have always been around.”

Steve blinks at him in confusion, “What are you on about?”

“In your book. I found your book in the closet when I was looking for a sweater. You have all these 21st Century things in here... but I’m pretty sure apples have always existed.” Bucky gestures to the page, deadly serious and Steve doesn’t even try to stop himself laugh.

“Oh, god. Yes, Buck, apples have always existed.”

“Then why...?”

“Look, come here,” Steve says, taking Bucky’s flesh hand in his own and leading him into the kitchen. He rummages around in the back of a drawer for a second before pulling out a small metal device with a screen. Bucky just looks all the more confused and Steve smiles because he really is cute when he’s confused. “It’s an iPod.” He explains.

Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up and he takes the iPod from Steve tentatively.

“Apple make a whole bunch of gadgets; cell phones; laptops; and these iPods are like portable music players.”

Bucky’s squinting at the iPod now, holding it up so the charger hole is level with his eye, “Where do you put the record in?” he asks.

Steve laughs again and shakes his head fondly, “You don’t need one, Buck. All the songs are already on there.”

“Oh,” Bucky says quietly, removing it from in front of his face. “Clever.”

“And you can take it out and about with you too. So, like, when I go running with Sam and he’s taking far too long to catch up, I can just listen to music.”

“Oh,” Bucky says again. “Can I listen?”

“Here,” Steve says again, tapping at the screen of the iPod before handing it back to Bucky. “Just touch the little triangle in the middle.”

Bucky presses at it tentatively with one metal finger and almost pouts when nothing happens, “I think it only responds to you, Steve.”

“Uh.. Buck, you might want to try and do it with your other hand,” Steve suggests and Bucky nods, as if he’s focusing very hard on learning how to work this new gadget.

He presses play a bit harder this time and Steve erupts into laughter the same time Bucky almost jumps out of his skin as the iPod starts singing:

_Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want.._

“Ah!” Bucky yelps, rapidly pressing play/pause again and again, only stopping and starting the music in jumps.

“Not a Spice Girls fan, then?”

“Who?”

“Never mind,” Steve says, pressing his lips together to prevent the grin spreading over his face and prising the iPod out of Bucky’s metal hand.

“I don’t think I like apples. They must take a while to get used to,” Bucky says.

“It’s alright. Stick with the fruit for now.”

“Steve?” Bucky asks, looking up at Steve with trusting eyes, “Can we do something?”

“Sure, Buck, what’ve you got in mind?”

“Can you teach me things in your notebook? I don’t like not knowing all this stuff, I don’t like you knowing more than me,” he says with a little grin and Steve’s heart leaps because these moments where Bucky’s old self comes back are becoming more and more of a regular occurrence.

“Fiiiine,” Steve draws out, as if he could ever say no to Bucky when he’s grinning like that, “Where shall we start?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugs happily, “Can we go shopping? I want to see what new stuff they have.”

“What new stuff they have since the 40’s, yeah?” Steve asks, only slightly mockingly.

 Bucky smiles at him again, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “Gotta start somewhere.”

 

-

 

They decide to take the subway, despite Steve insisting that  _we really don’t have to / you sure, Buck?_  And it turns out to be fine for the most part.

Bucky sits as close to Steve as humanely possible, pressed up arm to arm while Bucky watches every single person with a curious gaze- not that Steve could tell him to stop staring if he wanted, Bucky’s sudden newfound fascination in everything is probably cuter than it should be.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky whispers a bit too loudly in Steve’s ear for such a cramped public vehicle.

“Yes?”

“Almost everyone here has apples. They love them.” Bucky points to the seats opposite them, where indeed most of the passengers are sitting, engrossed in their phones or with their heads back against the window, eyes shut, earphones in.

“Yep,” Steve says, smiling more to himself than anything. “They do love apples.”

 

-

 

The mall is crawling when they get there, they probably could have picked a less packed time than 2pm on a Saturday, but Bucky is too overwhelmed and intrigued by everything to notice much; though Steve doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s metal hand is clinging to his jacket sleeve in a vice grip.

“It’s alright,” Steve assures him and Bucky turns to him as if he hadn’t even realised he was holding on so tightly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. He looks down at himself in his black sweatpants and his black t-shirt he ‘borrowed’ from Steve. “Everyone else is dressed better than me,” he states simply.

Steve feigns offence but fails to hide his smile, “What’s wrong with my t-shirt? It’s clean and everything.”

Bucky laughs at him quietly, “Remember a time when I would’ve never have been able to fit into your clothes.”

Steve’s chest swells and his face almost hurts from how big he’s smiling, “You remember that, do you?”

“I remember you being a tiny little thing, though partly from those pictures that you showed me, but still,” Bucky smiles too, seemingly proud of how happy he made Steve.

“I used to be the one stealing your clothes, Barnes,” he tells him and Bucky’s face lights up.

“They’d have been like dresses on you!” he laughs and Steve shrugs. “Bet it was awful cute.”

Steve doesn’t manage to respond but he feels the blush creep on his cheeks and sees Bucky’s quick smirk fast enough.

“Come on then, Sergeant,” Steve says with a grin, “do you know what you want to dress like yet?”

Steve leads them into one of the quieter stores with poor lighting but he figures its best to get Bucky out of the crowd for a while.

“Pick up anything you like and put it in this basket, alright? I suppose you’d be about a medium.” He tells Bucky, passing him a linen basket, who nods once at the order.

Steve doesn’t intervene with Bucky’s browsing; he’s perfectly content watching him carefully select out sweaters and hold them up to his chest, making the funniest face of contemplation before putting it back on the wrong rack.

“Oh, Steve! I like this!” Bucky calls out from behind several racks and a mannequin, “What do you think?” he steps out with his arms open, brandishing himself wearing a well fitting leather jacket with the collar turned up.

Steve’s face breaks into a smile at the sight, “Very suave,” he agrees, stepping into Bucky’s space to tug down the collar, hands lingering on his shoulders for a split second too long.

“It’s $70, is that too much?” Bucky queries, smoothing down the jacket over his front.

“Don’t worry about it, if it comes to it we can go all puppy dog eyes on Nat, yeah?”

Bucky nods, happy enough with that and lifts his basket up to show Steve what else he’s managed find. There’s an assortment of cardigans and plain t-shirts and sweaters, a couple of pairs of black pants and what looks very much to Steve like a pair of skinny jeans.

“Oh and look what else,” Bucky exclaims, eyes bright as he digs to the bottom of the basket to pull out another t-shirt.

“Oh my god,” Steve gapes, breathing out a laugh.

In his hands Bucky is, quite proudly, holding up what is quite clearly a white tee with a cartoon print of Steve’s face on it and block letters in red, white and blue reading:  _I need a hero!_

“We are  _not_ buying that.” He folds his arms sternly, but Bucky pays him no such mind, folding up the shirt and putting it neatly in the top of his basket.

“Can I try on these pants now, I don’t know whether they’ll fit,” Bucky changes the subject without losing the cheeky smile on his face.

“The fitting rooms are over here,” Steve shakes his head, exasperated, and shows Bucky the way.

It turns out Bucky takes ages to get changed, and Steve is just about to knock and tell him to hurry up a bit when the door flies open to reveal Bucky grinning at him.

“What about these?” he asks, pointing down to the skinny jeans, and wow, Steve has to admit he does look  _great_ in them.

“Wow,”

“Yeah?” Bucky turns around and looks back over his shoulder at Steve, who almost chokes because Bucky is practically inviting him to check out his ass, which is a very nice ass at the best of times, but these jeans are sinful.

“Lookin’ good, Buck,” Steve manages, clearing his throat.

“All the young men were wearing them out there. Just because I’m in my nineties doesn’t mean I can’t keep up with trends and such,” Bucky turns around, doing another 180°.

“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Steve jokes and Bucky just continues smiling at him, shooting him a quick wink and looking like he’s won something when Steve’s cheeks heat up.

-

 

They end up buying the knitwear and the leather jacket and the skinny jeans and even the goddamn Captain America top, and Bucky is practically buzzing by the time they make it back to the apartment.

“That was so fun wasn’t it, Steve?” Bucky grins, unceremoniously dumping the shopping bags onto the couch. “Why didn’t you take me out before?”

“You never wanted to go out,” Steve says, smiling nonetheless at Bucky’s enthusiasm as he turns to lock the door.

“I should’ve done. You should’ve shown me your notebook earlier. Can we look at what else is in it?” Bucky asks, almost bounding into the kitchen where they’d left it. “We can do something that doesn’t involve going out, it’s getting kinda late.”

Steve doesn’t have the heart to argue so he comes up behind Bucky to see what he’s looking at in the book. “Found anything yet?”

“Who’s Mario Kart? Is he a leader or something? Mario Kart W, I, I.”

Steve laughs and reaches over to take the book from Bucky. “Mario Kart Wii? It’s a game, Buck, on that thing,” he points over to the white box and stick-like controllers underneath the television.

“Oh,” Bucky says, staring at the box, “I thought that was like a security alarm. I was scared to touch it.”

Steve smiles at him again, “Nope. It’s just a very clever video game. Clint gave it to me.”

“And that’s Mario Kart is it?”

“No, the box is just the Wii, Bucky. Mario Kart is the name of the game,” Steve tells him and Bucky looks at him like it’s the most important information he’s been told all week.

“Can we play it then?” he asks, walking over and bending down to inspect the Wii device itself.

Steve crouches down next to Bucky and starts up the Wii and TV, tightening the safety strap around Bucky’s wrist for him- just in case.

“Woah,” Bucky sighs, standing up and moving his arm from side to side, “The arrow is following me. It can see me.”

Steve puts the disc in and smiles up at Bucky who is staring at the screen in fascination. “Pretty smart, right?”

“Yeah,”

“Here we go,” Steve says, setting the game up. “Which character do you want to be?”

“I’ll be this dude in the green hat. You can be the mushroom,” Bucky says, still waving his hand around watching how the arrow moves on the screen until Steve gently pulls his arm down.

“You use the controller horizontally like a wheel, okay? This little circle button on the front is accelerate and the long button at the back is reverse.” Steve explains, taking Bucky’s hand in his own purely for the purposes of showing him which buttons to press.

“Yep. Got it.” Bucky nods, testing out using the controller in a steering wheel motion.

“Don’t worry if you come last in this race. It takes a lot of practice to become the expert,” Steve bites his lip over his smile, looking at Bucky out of the corner of his eye.

Bucky seems unfazed, simply giving a small grin back; “Game on, Rogers.”

 

-

 

“Ha! I did it! My green hat guy beat your mushroom!” Bucky woops, jumping up from where they’d both been perched on the edge of the coffee table.

“Pfft,” Steve rolls his eyes but smiles dotingly, “Show off.”

“I am the winner!” Bucky continues, dropping his controller only to have it swing back and forth from his wrist by the safety strap.

Steve stands up too and pokes Bucky in the side, “Only because I let you win.”

“Nonsense,” Bucky practically  _giggles,_ shaking his hair out his eyes to beam at Steve, “You were cussing far too much for someone who wanted to lose.”

“Hmph,” Steve huffs, collapsing into the couch only to have Bucky collapse so close to him he almost lands in his lap. “That’s it. The notebook stays a secret, I will be the only all knowing mighty 21st century one in this home.”

“That’s not fair,” Bucky whines, “just because you’re a sore loser.”

“You’re a sore winner,” Steve hits back, jokingly, and Bucky’s eyes crinkle again as he smiles. “You didn’t even win anything.”

Bucky continues smiling at him, considering for a moment, before he’s leaning in close and mumbling, “Didn’t I?” and then his mouth his on Steve’s, kissing him soft and quick, pulling back far too soon.

“Oh,” Steve says, and this time he’s the one with eyes wide in interest. “That good a teacher, am I?”

“No. Those Spice Chicks scared me and you just laughed. You made a fuss about me buying that brilliant t-shirt. You’re terrible,” Bucky replies with the same fond smile and something inside of Steve’s chest does a little downward swoop.

Steve’s about to reply with something equally witty, and he opens his mouth to do so, only to have Bucky’s lips pressing on his again, and this time long enough to kiss him back, and, okay, maybe Bucky has a few things to teach  _him_  here.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought if you want, all feedback is greatly appreciated, but I hope it didn't suck too bad for a fandom I haven't been in long :)


End file.
